"The sun argues 

ice to liquid"

from Icicles

by Mark Irwin

We took the dogs to the park today, the city has not yet filled 

 the pond. They wait till late spring to discourage the Canadian 

Geese from nesting. However this pair of Mallards were making 

do with the spring melt water in a low spot. Although they are 

probably our most common duck I love the iridescent heads on 

the males and all the colours you see when they preen.

"I am living deeply now

like the white spider I spy

among the wild roses." 

from These Heady Flowers 

by Elizabeth Kirschner

  

   "I love the way the light falls over the suburbs
Late on these summer evenings, as the buried minds
Stir in their graves, the hearts swell in the warm earth
And the soul settles from the air into its human home.
This is where the prodigal began, and now his day is ending
In a great dream of contentment, where all night long
The children sleep within tomorrow’s peaceful arms
And the past is still,"

from  In The Park

by John Koethe

Walking the dogs thru the neighborhood or cutting

roses in the garden in the summer reminds me of

childhood summers with their green lawns, gentle

breezes and almost endless twilight. 

The passages in these poems spoke to those feelings and if

Koethe later changes the mood of his poem with the

habitual, pessimistic, qualifications I find frustrating in

his work, for me the (lovely) damage was already done

and I chose to focus on the evening light, the stillness and

the children asleep in tomorrow's peaceful arms.

the Garden

the Pond

As someone nearing 60 who still has my childhood

copy of Black Beauty. how could I not include this stanza

from Stafford's poem.

"Animals that knew the way to Heaven

wagged at the back doors of every house

when I was young, and horses told fences

the story of Black Beauty, and smelled of the good manger."

from When I Was Young

by William Stafford

 

“That country where it is always turning late in the year. 

That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; 

where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and

 midnights stay. That country composed in the main of 

cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries 

faced away from the sun. That country whose people are 

autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people 

passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”

Ray Bradbury

The quotes present two views of autumn. The pond two

weeks ago, drained for the winter there were large numbers

of robins and a few ducks taking advantage of the food 

exposed by the expanse of mud this revealed.

"Though we have not yet had a frost, the chill of early

autumn has come into the house, perhaps in the tattered

carpet bags of the field mice moving into the the cellar for 

the winter. Falling leaves have begun to blow past the window,

the lovely yellow leaves of time."

                   Local Wonders

                                        Seasons in the Bohemian Alps

           Ted Kooser

“Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty 

in the world we find.” 

Terry Tempest Williams

Another Sunday at the pond.

Before we are off on our great adventure.

"Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. 

Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! 

There's so little hope for advancement."

 Snoopy

Sunday at the pond

" It was indeed a time between, one second

their thoughts all brambled airedale, the next

all silken slumbering cat."

 

from Something Wicked This Way Comes

Ray Bradbury

 

 

 

 

 

"A dragonfly reconnoiters.

Mosquitoes sense new summer flesh."

 

from Song for the Indian River Man

Rienzi Crusz

 

 

 

 

"He's give anything to be there

crossing time as if it were

a landscape he dreamed, a garden"

 

      from Gardens

         Lorna Crozier

"The snow came down last night like moths

Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,

Covered the town with simple cloths."

                      from   First Snow in Alsace

                                Richard Wilbur

We are poised now between fall and winter 

slipping between the two with the same ease

with which we chose between a jacket for a 

walk or a winter coat. Thursday I wore my parka for

a lunch time walk to the pond in the Research

Park.

As always there were ducks.

The following quote comes from a poem

I found on my favorite poetry website

Poetry Daily a new poem every day

there are also great articles.

 

"Snow has sentimentalized the world,
left it sugar-coated, a baked Alaska
conjured from the palest of vanilla ice creams,
the purest of swan's egg whites,
its mushy, too-sweet-to-be-wholesome look
topped with a confection of candied trees—
bare-branched candelabras—holly waxing
eloquent with berries in a citric winter dusk. "

 

from Snow

                                   Dennis O'Driscoll

 

 

 

 

"Thoreau said to look along the bank right

at water level and to stand still for a few

minutes and right where the grasses stuck

up through the water you would see a muskrat

if there were any. I stood still for a bit, and sure

enough in a few minutes I saw a muskrat in the

middle of the city 2,000 miles from Walden Pond.

And I realized that Concord is where you are right now,

 and Walden Pond is the nearest body of water.

Denver was my real Concord."

 

from Channeling Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

an interview with Robert Richardson

 

author of the Emerson bio "The Mind on Fire"

 

                                 Salon.com

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.

How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the

moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood

is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores

over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. “

                                      Vita Sackville-West

 

I have often posted photos of the pond by my office but

until last week it had never occurred to me to take the dogs

there, so this weekend the whole family sans Max the cat were

off. It proved to be quite a nice spot for a walk with critters to

see, benches to rest on, lots of smells and even a puppy to meet.

 

So here it is Sunday in the park.

 

 

The insect catching Waxwings that nest on the small island
and spend the day feeding over the pond.

 

 

 

Clouded Sulphur Butterfly?

 

“To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means

to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are

separate from.”

Terry Tempest Williams